25+ Best Android Wear Apps – 2017 And Beyond Edition

A contemporary lifestyle can be complicated. Yet, lucky us we live in the 21st century. Now, reaching all the way down to your pocket or purse to grab that smartphone just to check out some to do list item is unnecessary. Unlike two short years ago, there is a useful Android Wear app to do it all on your behalf—from your wrist. In fact, there are over 4000 Android Wear apps to make your smart wearable really intelligent.

From managers to marketers, the health conscious to health practitioners, to social enthusiasts and fun fanatics, and everyone else in between, there’s an Android Wear app for your life purpose.

These 21 apps prove that a smartwatch app shouldn’t be a watered-down version of the useful, powerful and customizable app on your smartphone. Having said that, Google’s Android Wear platform is still an evolving project—a great work in progress. The best is still to come. However, these current crops are the Best Android Wear apps to whirl awesomely on your wrist from March 2017.

Let’s take them out for a spin.

Shall we?

Must-Haves for Android Wear

1. Wear Store for Wear apps

You probably went straight to Play Store to browse through, select and download the best Android Wear-compatible apps to your new smartwatch.

But on reaching the Play Store, you were a little confused about where to begin—all you probably saw were smartphone apps only.

In came Wear Store, the Play Store specifically for Android Wear-based smartwatch apps. The apps are organized into categories, so it is easy to get to them and do way more, much faster.

From on here, you can easily check and read reviews specific to Android Wear apps, too.

Best Android Wear Apps: Health and Fitness

3. Endomondo

Endomondo is a fantastic health and fitness app to help you lose your phone and track all your vitals in a standalone mode via the Endomondo Android Wear apps—definetly one of the best Android Wear apps available.

Just like with the other device versions, you can tag all exercise metrics including on walks, climbs, runs, bike runs, and so on right on your watch.

If your smartwatch is clever enough to have inbuilt GPS support, then you can tag all the important distance, route, etc data directly to the watch as well.

4. Runtastic (free) and Runtastic Pro

The runner-friendly app for the wrist wearable easy to use with a one-tap operation and supports start/stop voice commands. The app also shows distance covered, calories burnt, time and date, so you can stay on top of your fitness plan.

If you need some cheering along, a little competition to keep you on your toes, there are over 40 million registered Runtastic members to battle it out with on the track and a number of social features to keep you yearning for the track all the more.

The Runtastic Running Pro version is rich with advanced health metrics analysis tools, live stats, voice coaching, a workout diary, training goals and plans, and much more.

5. Sleep as Android

The smartphone version of Sleep as Android needs you to sleep with your smartphone nearby (on the mattress) to learn your sleeping patterns and report to you later the next day.

The smartwatch version is even better. It can be particularly accurate since you actually have it on your wrist, and it can detect whether you are lying still or keep moving about restless.

Get a more detailed perspective of your sleeping habits by checking out the graphs and charts it calibrates for you. It also comes with an advanced alarm system to help you wake up at the right time, not to forget some cool integration features that allow you to control the Phillips Hue smart bulb (among others) and dim your energy to sleep too.

6. Jawbone’s UP app

Jawbone, one of the leading health tech pioneers worldwide, now fully support an Android Wear version of the UP smartphone app.

By installing the app on your wrist timepiece, you eliminate the need to buy a separate Jawbone app to track your daily steps.

And if you are familiar with Google Fit, UP will be a no-brainer to activate and work with. However, it is not all Google Fit here, and Jawbone lets you tap into its legendary health and fitness analysis, personal training and workout tech ecosystem so you can spoil yourself.

7. RunKeeper

It does track walking, biking, and jogging in addition to running sessions. It lets you view directly from the watch screen your miles per minute speed, distance covered, time and date, calories torched, as well as real-time exercise stats.

Moreover, you can tap on the screen to start/pause/stop activity recording by following up with a verbal command such as “start”, “pause” or “stop”.

We like the level of detail that the app gives, too. It’ll show up a summary card that displays all the important session data you need when you need it. For long-term statistics and even more advanced stats, there’s a subscription to help unlock those.

10. At Work

If you are a small business owner or freelance worker, this tiny app maybe what you need to slap on your wrist. All you need to do is grab At Work from the Play Store (or Wear Store), tap on it and punch for the day.

The app will go to work by simply starting a timer that’ll help you record the amount of time you spend on the job—or how much slack time you are on to these days.

When you are done, just punch out right on your watch’s. At work will keep that data for your analysis later on.

Update Sept 2016: It seems that Duolingo has been removed from the Wear Store

Best Android Wear Apps: Location Tracking

Google Maps for Android Wear aside, here are some great alternatives:

17. @Here

Need step by step guidance to a destination you may know little about?

The @Here app will help you do so from stealing a glimpse on your wrist. It works really well with both rounded and square watch faces. That way you won’t find obscured or “missing” on-screen prompts such as the settings tab inconveniently tucked beyond the small display of a smartwatch.

The accuracy of this thing is something comparable only to Google Maps. It works seamlessly too, and can pinpoint a destination right until arrival right from the wrist. But you’ll need a GPS-enabled watch to play along.

18. CityMapper

This handy little Wear app will be a favorite with city residents, especially.

You can use it to guide your steps right to the entrance of your destination. It particularly works to give you travel information based on transit schedules and maps.

Tap on it and the CityMapper app will let you know the cheapest way to get there, too. And if there are delays along the tube or road up ahead, the app will help you skip it all and find the fastest alternative route to your destination.

22. Wear Mini Launcher

This app picks up and takes the scrolling action of smartphones (we are all familiar with) to the tiny screen of the intelligent watch.

You know it can be frustrating trying to find a specific app from the default Android Wear launcher, right?

For example, to access the shortcut route to settings on your smartphone you only need to swipe a finger down from the top of your phone.

With Wear Mini Launcher for smartwatches, you only need to double-swipe from the left to access quick settings.Do so once and you are led to scroll through the full drawer or list of all apps installed on the watch.

The app comes complete with smartphone-like staples that include time and date, notifications, and access to your linked smartphone’s quick settings such as WI-FI and brightness—so you can adjust those from the wrist on your watch.

23. InstaWeather

Receive instant (hence the name) meteorological reports in your area and areas you are heading to as well.

Wear the InstaWeather for Wear app and rest assured you’ll be notified if a shower is headed your route. The app even calculates how far away (in distance and time) the drenching experience may happen.

Lift up your wrist and you’ll not only be stunning some cool (and multiple) watch faces, but you’ll also have a look at the time, date, hourly weather forecasts and radar maps, and more from a swift glimpse at your wrist wearable.

Best Android Wear Apps: Watch Faces and Games

24. Rappier Watch Face

Admittedly, there are tons of watch faces to slap on your watch’s screen. Rappier Watch Face cuts through the junky mess and brings some of the best, useful features we have seen.

It comes with a myriad of customizations including choosing design and background colors.

It shows the time and dates (of course), incoming text, SMS, and email messages, as well as displaying unread SMS and mail messages and missed calls.Way cooler is that it does display heart rate—although we’d rather stick to dedicated heart rate trackers.

Yet, it is a good try—better than most of the competition by a light year (or two).

Best Android Wear Apps 2017

That’s it! A bunch of 26 best Android Wear apps to use to knock yourself out. Think we’ve missed some worthy Wear masterpieces from this list, share with the rest of the community right below in the comments section.

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